Five Rupees: Pakistan's All-Time XI

Thursday, April 15, 2010

Pakistan's All-Time XI

I have a blog post up on Dawn, picking the best possible Pakistan test team ever. Check it out.

15 comments:

Raza said...: I'm with you on Younis.

But using your logic for picking Waqar--that he was destructive when at his peak--I disagree with you on Fazal and Qadir.

Both Shoaib Akhtar and Saqlain Mushtaq, when they were at the top of their game, were the best in the world. No bowler has struck fear in the hearts of the modern day Aussie batsman than Shoaib. Nuff said.

Saqlain's introduction of the doosra is comparable to Qadir's googly, but merely on stats, Saqi beats out Qadir.

Also, the keeper situation isn't ideal--I'd go with Moin for his batting, but I can live with Rashid.; 4/15/10, 4:29 PM
Ahsan said...: Raza: Yaar, please. Shoaib? I know I'm picking 5 bowlers, but I would still like spells of longer than 3 overs. And Shoaib's peak lasted all of a year or two, Waqar's lasted about 5 years. More importantly, they are similar sorts of bowlers, and we need variety, and Waqar's career is easily better than Shoaib's. And finally, Waqar was a very, very good bowler when he WASN'T at his peak, can't say the same about Shoaib.

A number of people have brought up Saqlain. Not averse to it, but generally I prefer leggies to offies in test cricket and offies to leggies in ODIs/T20s.

On Moin/Rashid, going for the best keeper, not best batsman-keeper. And Rashid's batting was underrated.; 4/15/10, 4:37 PM
Umair Javed said...: Moin was a better keeper for spin bowling...Rashid was never able to pick Afridis faster one or Saqlains doosra.

i still think Zaheer Abbas at his peak is at least as effective as Younis Khan...; 4/15/10, 7:26 PM
Nabeel said...: Everything but the keeper. Somehow Moin always seemed better. Rashid's whistleblowing doesn't mean he was a better player-in fact,it suggests that he'd probably be a disruption in the dressing room. And then Imran Khan would more or less murder him and you'd have to play Moin anyway.

Two more thoughts-
1)You've certainly returned to blogging with a vengeance!
2)What happened to abandoning cricket? ;); 4/15/10, 7:42 PM
Yo Mista! said...: Nice post Ahsan. I second Nabeel's comment re you returning to blogging...; 4/15/10, 9:32 PM
karachikhatmal said...: raza:

you may be blood, and no one loves shaiby baby like i do, but benching waqar for shoaib is the most blasphemous thing i can imagine for now. unless its a shoaib stuck in a groundhog day during that three match aussie odi series, and even then it may not swing it. if anything, i would drop fazal for shoaib, or even more so for asif. imagine wasim bhai and asif. ufff.

ahsan:

a bit unfair on the inzi running between the wickets, since you know he was much much better than his brain freezes make us think. but fair point, it was funny, and the whole article was really damn good.

umair:

look up zed's averages in away series to india with results. he bombed. MYK has put up manly fights all over the place.; 4/15/10, 11:48 PM
karachikhatmal said...: also love how so many guys at dawn blog have put yousuf at 3. are they fucking nuts?; 4/15/10, 11:51 PM
Butterscotch said...: Ahsan
Bari would be my only contender for the keeping slot. We are talking about a test keeper and he is way ahead of any pakistani wicket keeper; 4/16/10, 1:58 PM
lala pathan said...: i' think u forgot Zaheer Abbas and Saqlain Mushtaq. The rest seems ok .; 4/16/10, 8:54 PM
Ammara said...: congrats and a gud job!; 4/16/10, 9:42 PM
zac said...: You have justified your selection of Saeed Anwar over someone else like Majid Khan based upon career batting average, which I think isnt the right way to go. The reason being that Majid Khan played against some of the greatest bowlers of all time, namely, andy roberts, malcolm marshall, michael holding, joel garner, dennis lillee, richard hadlee, fred trueman, Croft, etc.
Saeed did face good bowlers, but definitely not of the same league as the abovementioned. Also the pitches werent as good for batting in those days either.
I recall the South Africans consistently exploiting Saeeds weakess outside his offstump with ease; so when I try picturing him facing up to these bowlers, the decision becomes much easier--Majid Khan and Hanif Mohammad should be the two openers for the All time Pakistan XI. Saeed was without a doubt a great player and one of my favorite batsmen, but Majid performed against the greatest bowler of all time, in a era that was particularly difficult for batting (his average is 40+ against the mighty Windies!!); 4/16/10, 10:24 PM
karachikhatmal said...: ahsan:

you just did a chaudhary iftikhar.

you convinced all your loyal readers to believe in your decisions, and we remained convinced of all your justifications - backed as they were by dispassionate rationality, ivy league grandeur, and rules of statistics.

then, when we back you all the way to almost copy-pasting your selection onto our own, our own wills, we found out that you were no different than the rest. you hadn't checked majid's stats against the windies.

if you have, then i can't see why he doesn't play as opener. that's good runs against the best, and something tells me he really brought the personality in the big games.

ladies and gentlemen, my new all-time XI opener

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxyHRB8QUJY#t=00m49s; 4/16/10, 11:20 PM
zelda-3 said...: i would give amir sohail the edge over saeed anwar. Saeed anwar was just an ordinary 35 run average batsmen. and i think you forgot hias weakness for spinners. Amir Sohail can serve as a filling bowler too, so you have more bowling options.

So now i think we can play shoaib?; 4/17/10, 5:42 AM
Zeyd said...: I love how Fazal has a cigarette in his hand in that profile pic. I wonder if he bedded more women than Imran?

But yeah, same team. Only positions that can be debated are keeper (never saw Bari but apparently he was good) and spinner (Qadir Vs Saqlain) and I'd go with Qadir because he was a cheeky bastard and could wind up the opposition. Need as many of those as possible.; 4/20/10, 11:59 AM
Nabeel said...: How about Qadir over Saqlain because he was simply a better player? The stats don't show it,but I never felt Saqlain scared any opposing batsmen. Leggies are so much more unpredictable and dangerous.; 4/20/10, 2:26 PM